


i saw a couple holding hands and i imagined yours,

by thelittlestbishop



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, The Barton Family doesn't exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 10:12:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18569296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlestbishop/pseuds/thelittlestbishop
Summary: "I need a phone," She says again, turning to Steve, who looks so lost she almost doesn't recognize him, but she doesn't have time to think about it. She's more worried about someone she can't see, someone that wasn't there, to begin with.Or how Natasha finds herself anchorless after the snap, and how she comes to find her anchor again.





	i saw a couple holding hands and i imagined yours,

Natasha can’t hear anything. She's not sure if her hearing’s been damaged or if the oppressive silence is just as ubiquitous for everyone else. They gather the survivors and head back to the castle, her heart in her throat. It doesn't hit her until they've climbed onto a transport and her stomach drops.

"I need a phone." She whispers it first, testing the words in her mouth before desperation climbs its way out of her chest. " _I need a phone_ ," She says again, turning to Steve, who looks so lost she almost doesn't recognize him, but she doesn't have time to think about it. She's more worried about someone she can't see, someone that wasn't there, to begin with.

"Do you have a phone on you?" The desperation in her tone is so thick it threatens to choke her.

Any other time she would have been mortified by her lack of composure, ashamed of the way she's lost control of her always perfectly tailored emotions. But her standard baseline has been shot to hell.

She doesn't know how long she's been begging for a phone, but her hands are still empty, her eyes filled with tears, and everyone else is silently hopping down onto the platform. A heavy hand reaches for her shoulder, but she's already on the move and only feels the ghost of the contact. Or maybe her anxiety is making her dissociate. It doesn't matter. _Nothing_  matters, not until she can get Clint on the phone.

It seems as if in the blink of an eye she's teleported into the back of the quinjet, though logic dictates that she had to walk there. Her fingers fly over the comms display, going off muscle memory since her brain still feels disconnected from her body and from time and from reality.

If someone had asked her how much time had passed between the moment she marked that number and the moment the call went through her answer would've been: _a lifetime._

The line rings and rings, her heartbeat going three times the tempo. And then the ringing stops and so does her heart.

Or it just feels like it, because she's still alive when his voice comes through.

_"Leave your message after the tone, I'll get back to you soon."_

How she wishes her heart really had stopped beating.

There's someone screaming _somewhere_ , she can hear them. She can also hear the heavy footsteps of her remaining teammates as they rush to the source. She should get up, make herself marginally useful, but her legs feel like lead and her vision has been blurred with tears she hadn't noticed were there until now.

They catch her off guard just like the realization that Thor is now standing there by her side, a hand on her shoulder.

And then she realizes that the screaming is coming from inside the jet, more specifically, from her. She can't remember the last time her body had produced such an anguished sound.

The screaming stops, the tears don't blur her vision anymore, but her cheeks are wet. Steve and Rhodey are looking at her from just outside the ramp of the jet. Thor helps her up and she takes one of the seats mounted to the wall, hands surprisingly empty.

She's not sure what she expected to find in them, but they feel empty. Or maybe she does. Natasha doesn't allow herself to think about it for too long.

Getting to New York is a blur, it doesn't register in her mind until they're settled back into their old rooms, too many of them now vacant. The empty feeling, the sensation of her chest having been hollowed out, only gets worse as the days go by and all the missing faces flash before their eyes with an eerie blue glow.

And it just gets worse. Days turn to weeks turn to months until it's been a year since the battle in Wakanda; since she's lost her tether to the world and has been left to wander adrift without real rhyme or reason. She's good at pretending, yes, but something gnaws at the back of her mind whenever she's alone.

Now she just trains out spite. The Red Room didn't break her, no matter how hard they tried, she won't give Thanos that satisfaction either.

No one's recovered. She doubts anyone is trying too hard on that regard. They can't allow themselves to move on because they have to fix this, there's no other option for them. They'll fix it or die trying and they've made their peace with that.

Her body aches as she steps out of the shower, the hot water has done nothing to ease the discomfort. She knows by now that the brunt of it is from lack of sleep and her mental anguish. Knowing this doesn't mean she has to like it.

She finds Steve in his office, hunched over his chest as he looks over footage on the computer screen. All she hears are the sounds of a fight and the murmur of a city in the background but as she comes closer she can make out some Japanese.

"Are you watching a martial arts movie?" She teases, depositing herself into a chair across from his. The look of utter concentration on his face makes her smile falter, her relaxed posture disappears and instead, she leans forward, tense and curious all the same. "What is it?"

He glances up, a look on his face she's not sure she's seen before and certainly not one she thinks she can decode before he turns away. "Not sure. We got an alert on an assassin in Japan, taking out the Yakuza. There was another hit last night, but we don't have any ID," he explains, leaning back in his chair, a hand coming briefly to his mouth, "He wears a mask, locals haven't been much help other than saying his Japanese could use some work. So he's not from there." There's a permanent frown on his face by now, born from stress and too much seen, but she thinks they must all look the same.

"Is this really something we should concern ourselves with? I mean, if he's taking out Yakuza members I doubt anyone minds."

Steve's expression shifts minutely. Natasha tilts her head to the side.

"I'm more concerned with who he's working for than who his current targets are."

"Mind if I take a look at it? Might be someone from the old days." He pushes his chair back just enough as she makes her way around the desk, bending over to see the screen.

She restarts the grainy footage and narrows her eyes as she focuses on the hooded figure going up against a considerable group. A standoff. And then he moves, producing a sword she hadn't seen.

Her heart skips a beat.

She could recognize those moves a mile away. But it can't be. Except- _There_.

He throws his arms back, just an inch, a reflex. The reflex of muscle memory, reaching to get the next arrow. _Clint_.

"How old is this footage?" She asks, eyes glued to the screen but unseeing.

"It's from last night. Why?"

"I need the jet."

"What? The j- Nat, what's going on? Who is it?"

She's already halfway out the door when she stops, bracing herself on the doorframe as her eyes, wild, meet his. "Clint. It's Clint."

And she's gone, despite Steve asking for an explanation, and straight up following her down the hall as she heads for the hangar.

"I do not have the time to explain. I need to be in Japan as soon as possible."

He watches as she gathers gear, but she can't find her widows bites even though they were just there and she does not have time to lose and- Steve is holding them out to her.

"How can you be sure? I thought-"

"Yeah, well, so did I. Trust me on this one, okay? It's him. I can recognize his style, I- Steve, I have to go. _Please_ ," she's not above begging, not now, not after thinking for over a year that Clint was gone and that there was nothing she could do about it.

And she can read _this_  look on his face clear as day. If he found any sign one of his loved ones was out there, if there was the slightest chance he could get them back, he would walk through hell for them.

He lets her go.

Tokyo feels the same as the last time she was here, though last time Clint was actively at her side, cracking jokes. She's so unbalanced she knows if she dwells any longer she'll lose her composure. So she shuts down on herself, knowing in the back of her mind that he would call her out on it.

But he's not here, not in the sense that matters.

The first thing she does is check their one safehouse in the city, finding it painfully empty and covered in dust. After clearing each room she doesn't stick around. It's nightfall and she expects he works at night, aided by the dark shadows between all the busy streets. In the end, it doesn't take long to find him, aided in part by the police dispatch and in part because she was already in the heart of Yakuza territory. She's there just in time to see him finish off two men. It's odd, seeing such familiar motions being used with a sword, ever so different from a knife and miles away from his usual bow.

Natasha didn't expect the sight of him would hit her so hard, the air in her lungs leaving in a rush as if she'd had it knocked out of her and she'd like to pretend it's rainwater in her eyes, even under her umbrella.

It's surreal, having thought of him as gone for so long only to have him there, in the flesh. So close. She buries her short fingernails into the palm of her hands to reassure herself she really isn't dreaming.

The pattering of the rain seems to keep tempo with her heart, or maybe her heartbeat has simply drowned out everything else. She wants to call out for him, speak up before he disappears into the shadows, but she can't find her voice, seemingly lost somewhere in her chest. In the end, she doesn't have to.

She stands there unmoving in the middle of the street for so long he's sensed her and she's not surprised when he begins to turn around. He knows it's her. Must know so, because he's taking off the mask before she can fully be in his line of sight. Suddenly, the few feet that separate them have stretched into miles and her feet move of their own accord, trying to lessen the distance. He takes only a few tentative steps to aid in her mission, leaving her to feel like she'll never reach him.

An irrational fear that he'll vanish before she reaches him begins to settle in so she picks up the pace, the motion sending her tears spilling down her cheeks. The distance is gone in the blink of an eye, catching her off guard.

She's unraveling, anchorless, drifting in and out of the last shreds of sanity she has.

Now he's less than a foot away and she tilts the umbrella back to keep from hitting him, rain be dammed. Her lips move but she still hasn't found her voice, but Cling has always been more physical where she was verbose so she picks his language without a second thought.

A hand reaches out for a gloved one, praying he won't vanish, willing him to take her in return. The leather feels cool and slick as her fingers wrap around it. She has never felt such relief before at the touch of someone else, at the slight pressure of fingers flexing to hold onto her.

No matter what happens after this, they'll face it together and she has no doubt they'll overcome it. She might be halfway around the world from her bed but at that moment she knows she's finally home.


End file.
